Friday, July 21, 2017

Whew, finally made it to the weekend! Now I've got some time to get some stuff recorded for the last few days of this month. Shares are coming fast and furious now. Everything in the pile tonight was actually recorded last year, but never shared. That pile is almost to the end, so most everything else from here on out will be new rips from old records. Here goes!

1. Winter Wonderland by Eddie Layton With Rhythm Section from Better Layton Than Ever (Mercury SR 60031, Stereo, 1959). An oldie but a goodie. I have to stop myself from buying this whenever I see it in a stack, I think I have enough copies of it now. But it's so good!

2. Sleigh Ride by Glenn Derringer (no, not Rick Derringer, that's somebody else...) from Light 'N Easy (Ovation OVQD/1439, Quadraphonic, 1975). Is this the first quad record I've ever shared? I doubt if the quad effect comes through the MP3 file, but if anybody can decode this, perhaps I can send you a WAV file. I sent it to a friend of mine last year who collects such things and he said it is spectacular. I don't have the hardware to decode it or listen to it, unfortunately.

3. Make A Daft Noise For Xmas, another from those British comedy folks The Goodies, again from The Goodies Greatest (Bradley's Records (UK) BRADL 1012, Stereo, 1976). I still think I should have saved up and done an all-comedy day. Too late now. Is this record disco?

4. June In January by Hugo Winterhalter from A Season For My Beloved (ABC-Paramount ABCS-447, Stereo, 1963). Another record that just keeps on giving!

6. Go Tell It On The Mountain, an excellent version by Brook Benton-Arranged And Conducted By Malcolm Dodds from If You Believe (Mercury SR 60619, Stereo, 1961). Good stuff here.

7. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire), one of a very few Christmas songs recorded by the one and only Sammy Davis, Jr., this one is from the LP The Nat King Cole Song Book (Reprise RS-6164, Stereo, 1965). I think he first released the song on a Mel Torme tribute LP, but it showed up again on this Nat King Cole themed album.

8. Christmas Sing Along With Jose-Jingle Bells by Bill Dana as Jose Jimenez, the sort of ethnic humor that you don't really hear much of these days, for obvious reasons. This is from Jose Jimenez In Orbit-Bill Dana On Earth (Kapp KS-3257, Stereo, 1962). Whatever happened to Bill Dana?

9. Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year by Eydie Gorme-Arranged And Produced By Don Costa from Love Is A Season (ABC-Paramount ABC-273, Mono, 1959). This is from my lopsided pressing of the LP. Side one is stereo, side two is mono. This track was on side two, so you only get the single channel.

10. March Of The Toys By Billy May And His Orchestra from Billy May's Naughty Operetta (Capitol T487, Mono, 1954). I believe this is the original source of this track. I've shared it a few times from a later Pickwick reissue.

12. Baby, It's Cold Outside by Sacha Distel-Arranged And Conducted By Ray Ellis taken from the LP From Paris With Love (RCA Victor LPM-2611, Mono, 1962). No info on the sleeve that might tell me who the female voice on this one is. Odd, since you hear her first!

13. April-Snowdrop by Morton Gould At The Piano And Conducting His Orchestra, maybe the last track I grabbed from Tchaikovsky: The Months, Op. 37a (Columbia Masterworks ML 4487, Mono, 1950). Someday I'll find another copy of this LP and I'll rip the whole thing, promise!

And that's it, another lucky thirteen tracks. Not too many days left here, so start thinking about your favorites. I need to start dropping some tracks into the best-of folder, and I'm interested in hearing what you guys like the most. Comments are always welcome! Now, the share...

I need to go back and see what my best year has been so far. I can see a new record out there in the distance. All depends on how many versions of The Nutcracker Suite, Ave Maria and My Favorite Things I was to bother recording...

the kliph nesterhoff interviews are THE BEST !!! they are contagious. you might start reading them now and when you stop, it will be december. kliph really does his homework. he gets the most out of a generation of entertainers that are now passing on. if only he could spell his own name...

classic sports trivia question: who was the only person to play for both the brooklyn dodgers and the new york rangers?

answer: gladys gooding, the organist

and an update on that tricky answer is eddie layton, who played for the new york rangers, the new york knicks, the new york islanders, and for decades was organist in the bronx for the perennially overachieving, chest-thumping, never-need-an-excuse new york yankees. eddie died in 2004. but as god is a yankee fan, you can be sure that eddie’s up there providing heaven with incidental music.

as for that xylophonist on ‘winter wonderland’, i don't wish to speculate on what happened to him.

You spoil us this year. I love those Gorme songs (stereo or not). And I'm passing by to thank you, by the way :-) I take the chance to ask you: do you know a singer named Molly Stark ? I have a 45rpm made by her impresario Sioma Glaser (signed by him...) and she sings «When Christmas Comes». I could try to send a pic and a file one way or the other... You can have a look for a pic on the Net though.

Got Vinyl?

Ernie's Christmas record want list. There might be something in that stack of Christmas records you want to throw out that I need. Actually, there's a lot more that I need that I don't know about, so send 'em all to me (especially singles)! (Revised 03 March 2018)